Lady Liberty is in an abusive relationship with Uncle Sam.
Try as she might to break the hold that he has on her, she remains tormented by his maltreatment, but is bound by years of tradition and obligation, and unable to imagine a life independent of him. Though he’s raped and beaten her repeatedly, she finds a way to convince herself that he has redeeming qualities, along with a seemingly endless supply of second chances. She tells herself things will get better if only she could give him precisely what he wants, no matter how incongruent it may be with her safety or peace of mind. Despite her best efforts, he remains disgruntled and dissatisfied, and the abuse continues with very little hope of mitigation, and absolute certainty of escalation.
As we watch the disastrous dysfunction of Donald Trump’s first 30 days in office unfold, it becomes ever more apparent that we as a nation are already deep in the throes of an unhealthy relationship with a president and party that are hellbent on our oppression. In other words, welcome to Stockholm syndrome on a national scale.
Coined in 1973, this phenomenon was first characterized after freed Swedish hostages refused to testify against their captors in a bank robbery, and it offers many keys to understanding our current predicament.
From wiki:
There are four key components that generally lead to the development of Stockholm syndrome: a hostage’s development of positive feelings towards their captor, no previous hostage-captor relationship, a refusal by hostages to cooperate with police forces and other government authorities, and a hostage’s belief in the humanity of their captor, for the reason that when a victim holds the same values as the aggressor, they cease to be perceived as a threat.
While my chosen profession probably renders me somewhat incapable of missing this correlation, by now it shouldn't take a formal psychiatric evaluation for us to see the glaring parallels between those Swedish hostages and the voters who pulled the lever for Donald Trump on Election Day 2016. There is no shortage of think pieces on the hope and admiration felt by the white working class for a man whose stated policy proposals will no doubt be most detrimental to the white working class. Despite each new revelation of corruption and malfeasance, and his historically low debut approval ratings, 53 percent of white voters remain paradoxically satisfied with the job their president is doing.
Much like the Swedish hostages, they resist growing efforts to investigate and prosecute the perpetrators of their own abuse, because the very survival of their shared cultural identity is predicated on the feigned infallibility and superiority of their abusers. They frantically scream “give him a chance” while America's iteration of Gestapo rounds up Muslim and Mexican immigrants, just as their president stated he would do for them. As the most privileged members of our society, they've had no prior “hostage-captor relationship,” so they fail to believe (let alone heed) the warnings of the marginalized. They overlook the reality that they are voluntarily signing away their jobs, healthcare, and safety for nothing more than the honor and privilege of being the best-treated hostages at the robbery. They consume ever more fake news and right-wing propaganda, because naturally misery loves company and confirmation bias. They numb the pain of their self-inflicted wounds with a staggering epidemic of illicit drug and alcohol abuse, a medicine cabinet full of prescription pills, and a stockpile of firearms that are statistically far more likely to be used by them against themselves than the “rapists” their president keeps warning them about. They have yet to identify the threat before them because they prefer to believe the absolute best of their captors (and themselves) despite all evidence to the contrary.
Lady Liberty is in an abusive relationship with Uncle Sam, but too invested in false hopes for his humanity to save her own. How can we save her if she doesn't yet want to be saved?
“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if only they knew they were slaves.” - Harriet Tubman